“Speak Victorian, think Pagan.” Kaplan’s clever phrase is also the motto of Coming Anarchy. I wonder, though, if Curzon takes that maxim as seriously as he should….

Corey Welt emailed me an article he and David Hoffman authored for The American Prospect arguing that the cost of keeping the Karshi-Khanabad base is too high and that its military necessity is not so great as to outweigh that cost.

The diplomatic c…

Here, the US is working closely with the Sudanese intelligence and military services that are actively assisting the Janjaweed miiltias in their slaughter of Darfur’s population. Here, the US’s democracy agenda is truly shown to be a farce. Here, the CIA is inviting the architects of the genocide there to come to America and develop better working relationships.

Yet where is the outrage on Capitol Hill? Where is the anguish of Sens. McCain, Graham, etc etc? Where is Condi Rice giving stern warnings about protecting human life and rights?

This to me shows not only the ineptitude of the president’s foreign policy critics (for picking a poor target in Uzbekistan) but the total lack of shame of its supporters who can lecture Uzbekistan with a straight face while holding hands with Sudan.

Karimov is a bad dictator with one bloody massacre on his hands, Bashir and the ilk in Khartoum are mass murderers waging jihad against hundreds of thousands, committing massacres on a daily basis.

I guess this is a 2005 update of Stalin’s old adage: kill 1,000 or so and you’re a mass murderer we can’t support. Kill 400,000 and you’re a statesman, a vital WOT ally.

But what jerk in the State Department said last year, “let’s cut off aid to Uzbekistan because it will make us look good in the eyes of all those human rights groups”Â??

Last year it was Colin Powell apparently. This year, I’m sure it was made at a very high level. Though I disagreed with the move last year, I agree with it this year. Last year and this year, it had very little to do with satisfying NGOs but what our law says and what the 2002 memorandum of understanding says.

As far as I’m concerned, holding our allies to their word and following through with threatened consequences is important to our credibility. Uzbekistan failed miserably. Not because it was difficult and they couldn’t meet our expectations, but because Karimov thinks: 1) that he’s smarter than us; and, 2) that we didn’t really mean what we said.

If he wants to dick us around–and the Uzbek government is entirely to blame for the worsening relations here–then he can reap what he’s sown. And it’s not as if letting our relationship with Karimov die is some short-sighted emotional breakdown over human rights or democracy. This will bite him in the ass. If a democratic alternative appears able to replace him, then great. If not… Well, I’m sure Zakir Almatov has good reason to bear a grudge.

On another note, its not like its Bush himself or even Sec. Rice raising hell over what happened. Just the usual human rights groups and a few US senators, whose total influence on US gov’t policy (especially in light of recent events, like McCain’s bucking of the White House and the GOP on the fillibuster and AI/HRW’s political games with Gitmo) is next to nil.

But my visceral reaction to the Chivers story was “2 or 3? C’mon, guy, what are you, some kind of fool?” Their possible presence that day does very little to diminish from the value that the military training programs do have. Our officers were not there that day directing the operations, so I can’t be too terribly worked up about this. There certainly are conditions under which our training could be a significant problem, but it’s nice for me to know that there are mid-level Uzbek officers who like, respect, and have ties to the US military. After all, it’s not as if everyone in the Uzbek military and government is exactly enamored with Karimov’s increasingly problematic style of governing.

Second, I can’t imagine us going any lighter on him that we did. Hell he did his own Tiananmen and we blocked an investigation into it along with Russia in NATO. Talk about going to bat for someone. He is entirely to blame for not managing his country any better that it led to such a rebellion, not us for having to put up with such an incompetent ally.

He probably was afraid of a US backed “people power” movement within his country, but he reacted poorly to his fear and now he can be assured that we are going to overthrow him.

China will attempt build ties with the Uzbeks as fast as they can, which means with typical Chinese slowness. I have full confidence in the Chinese behaving as themselves.

Is this a bad thing? Yeah, we would rather it had not happened. I see only good coming from this long-term. Now we no longer have an excuse to support this clown and his days are numbered. If he is still in power two years from now it will be a miracle.